First tropical storm shows little sign of strengthening

Tropical storm Alex marched west across the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday but showed little sign of getting stronger and was still days from landfall.

The center of Alex was located about 1,000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said.The Lesser Antilles, an island group at the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea, include Barbados, Martinique, Guadeloupe and dozens of other islands.

Forecasters said Alex was a loosely organized storm system. The potential for a storm to gain strength increases the more tightly organized it is.